Lee Pace And Dean O’Gorman Land Roles In HOBBIT

Peter Jackson has announced the casting of two more additions to the cast of The Hobbit. Replacing the departing Rob Kazinsky in the role of the dwarf Fili is Dean O’Gorman while Lee Pace, perhaps best known from the series Pushing Daisies, has been cast as the elven king Thranduil.

As Jackson explained on his Facebook page –

I’m very pleased to be welcoming two new cast members to our team.

Dean O’Gorman will be playing Fili.  Dean’s a terrific Kiwi actor, who I am thrilled to be working with. He’s recently been in an excellent TV series down here called “The Almighty Johnsons”, and I should let fans of that show know that our shooting schedule allows Dean to continue with a second series next year.  Dean will be joining us next week.

I’m also pleased to announce that Lee Pace will be playing the Elven King Thranduil. Casting these Tolkien stories is very difficult, especially the Elven characters, and Lee has always been our first choice for Thranduil. He’s going to be great.  We loved his performance in a movie called “The Fall” a few years ago, and have been hoping to work with him since.  When we were first discussing who would be right for Thranduil, Lee came into mind almost immediately.

It’s been a great week, and I’m looking forward to the next few. It’s going to be interesting…

More soon.

Cheers,

Peter J

Thranduil is the king of the elves living in the northern part of the Middle Earth forest of Mirkwood. It is his kingdom whom Bilbo and the Dwarves inadvertently enter leading to the dwarves being imprisoned and leaving Bilbo to rescue them. Additionally, Thranduil is the father of Legolas, who we’ve seen in The Lord Of The Rings.